While you were weeping
by BuildYourFences
Summary: Rue's thoughts in the last moments of her life. Oneshot "She's singing something I can't quite make out over the roaring in my ears, but I know it's wonderful and heartbreaking and lovely. Vaguely, I regret missing it."


It's shortish, and I'm not a hundred percent happy with how it turned out, but here you have it. Rue's last moments. I hope people aren't too disappointed. And don't worry it's not sad—I don't think Rue would have wanted it that way. Constructive criticism is my life guys. Seriously. Have at it. I re

Disclaimer: Trust me, you would not be at all happy if I was Suzanne Collins. The Hunger Games would probably have been one of those books that get all crusty and gross, hanging out on the library shelves for centuries

I knew this would happen.

I hope she wins.

I'm staring at her face, watching every little shift and twitch, because I know this will be my last chance to see something beautiful. She's singing something I can't quite make out over the roaring in my ears, but I know it's wonderful and heartbreaking and lovely. Vaguely, I regret missing it.

I wonder if she might be my best friend, this girl who sits beside me, tangling her hands in my hair and tracing patterns over my face. I can see she's crying, and for a moment, I can't even remember why. The spear's hard to ignore for long though, considering it's thrust straight through my small intestine. I wish she wouldn't cry. I'm not. This really isn't the worst way to go, lying on soft, spongy moss, under the sort of trees I never imagined I'd get to see. Nothing like these in District 11. These giants don't produce. They are too regal for that. We're here to admire them; they owe us nothing.

I know I should be flashing through the happiest moments in my life or saying goodbye to each and every brother and sister I've got, but I can't. Imagining all the moments in their lives that I will never see, envisioning all the problems I will never help them solve, and knowing that I'm leaving them to bear countless impossible burdens—that will hurt far more than any stupid shaft of wood ever can. Instead, I focus on Katniss's eyes, and on each shuddering, painful breath I take. Determined to draw it out as long as possible, because despite the pain and despite everything it symbolizes for the people back home, I have loved this arena. It's been a new world where nothing could touch me, except, of course, the thing that finally killed me.

It's so beautiful, teeming with flowers I've never seen, in so many different colors and shapes and sizes, I'm not sure I've got enough words for all of them. The sun always shone, illuminated a vast universe of things to discover, explore, and fly through. I never imagined the games would be like this, and despite myself, I am grateful to the Gamemakers. They are heartless child-killers, yes, but they made my last days beautiful in a way I never could have hoped for in Eleven.

My eyes are clouding over now, and I know this is my last chance to…everything. To tell Katniss that I'm putting my faith in her. To watch the sun move across the sky and the wind blow through the trees. To show capital and the world that they haven't defeated me.

Because maybe I'm lying here dying, with a Capital spear through my middle, but at least I'm looking up to the sky and _smiling._ I have loved this life. It's been enough for me. They don't realize that for everything they try to take from us, we find a million more things that make life worth living. They can't take the moon and the stars, or the love of my family; they can't touch the taste of the first apple of the harvest or the song of the first robin of spring; and they definitely have no hold on the warmth of human kindness or the feeling of flying.

And nobody knows it yet, but they can't put out the fire. Not the one in Katniss's eyes nor the one that will soon blaze through Panem and ignite the Districts. I hope my brothers and sisters will be safe, but if not, they can come and live with me, and I can show them Heaven.

Katniss is still with me, even though she must know this is one battle she can't win. I wish I could thank her for that. I don't want to be alone. Although her presence might be keeping the cameras trained on us, and I don't want my family to hurt. It doesn't seem fair, really, that for me, pain is almost over, but for them, a new world of agony is just beginning. I smile wider, to reassure them. This isn't so bad, Mom. I'm happy, Dad. And Katniss. My big sister. Don't let this hurt too much, please. It doesn't hurt me. Just remember me when the flowers bloom and when the birds fly and when people raise their voices in song. Remember me when everything's over and it's ok to be happy again. Because I'm happy too.

I'm getting tired now and it's oh so cold. It's odd, because I can still feel the sun on my face and I can still see little heat shimmers dancing merrily in the distance, but it's like I'm watching it from far away.

Maybe it hurts just a little that I will never see my mother or father again, that I will never glide through the treetops and fly with the birds, but still it's no less than I expected. People say I'm only twelve years old, and I shouldn't think like this, but they don't understand that childhood isn't an age. It's a place where the world is magic and everyone loves you and no one ever dies. It's a place where people don't go hungry , don't get sick, and don't have to make hard choices. It's definitely not this place I live in, where children starve but no one cares, where people fall but no one offers them a hand, and where parents have to choose between their children but no one steps in to pick up the slack. Why should I be a child?

I knew before I left district eleven that I had no options left. Thresh knew it too, that's why he was so nice to me. I promised myself, as I waved goodbye to the apple trees and the corn fields and the sea of brothers and sisters, that I would love every minute of this. And I have, for the most part. I never had to kill anybody. I lived in the trees. I was never hungry. And I saved Katniss.

She has to win. She _has _to. Cause Thresh has a grandma, but he also has a sister who can take his place. But Katniss, she has a real reason to make it. Her sister _needs _her, I could see it when I watched her reaping. I couldn't take that from her, if I tried; I got to borrow it for a while though.

Everything is dark now. I sigh, and let go, but In the last moments, I latch onto her eyes, and beg her to remember me.


End file.
